Postal Vote Re-applications 2025 - 2026
If your postal vote is due to expire in January 2026, we may have contacted you by email this year to remind you to re-apply in advance.
This email is genuine and will be sent from elections.at.south.norfolk.and.broadland@notifications.service.gov.uk
Renewing your postal vote
The Elections Act 2022 introduced new rules for postal votes. From 31 October 2023:
- All postal vote applications must contain your name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and signature
- When you apply to vote by post your identity is checked against information held by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). In some instances, this identity check fails, and you will be asked to supply evidence of your identity
- Postal votes are valid for a maximum of 3 years
If you applied for a permanent postal vote before 31 October 2023, your postal vote will expire on 31 January 2026. When your postal vote expires, you will need to make a new application.
Why we are getting in touch now
We are contacting electors who applied for their postal vote before 31 October 2023 to ask them to re-apply as soon as possible.
You can re-apply online at https://www.gov.uk/apply-postal-vote
We have 38,000 postal voters who need to make a new application before 31 January 2026. We have started the re-application process early to allow voters plenty of time to re-apply should they wish to do so.
How we will contact you
Initially we will be contacting all electors who have supplied us with their email address. To check that any correspondence you have received is genuine:
- The email title will be 'Broadland District Council – Postal Vote Re-application Notice' or 'South Norfolk Council – Postal Vote Re-application Notice'
- The email will be sent from the government notification service, the sender will be Elections at South Norfolk and Broadland
- The sending account will be elections.at.south.norfolk.and.broadland@notifications.service.gov.uk
You do not have to wait to receive our re-application reminder to make a new application. You can apply online at any time by visiting www.gov.uk/apply-postal-vote.
We are contacting electors by email because re-applying online is the quickest and most cost effective way to make your application. Please help us by responding to our reminder as soon as you can.
If you do not wish to re-apply online, or if we do not hold an email address for you, we will contact you by post in the autumn and supply a paper application form for you to return.
The deadline to re-apply is 31 January 2026. If you do not respond to this request and submit a new application, your postal vote will expire on this date. We will write to you in February 2026 to notify you.
Please be assured that if you do not wish to make a new application online, you will automatically be sent a paper form later in the year. You do not need to contact us to request this.
More information
When you re-apply for your postal vote, you will receive an acknowledgement email. You may receive an email asking for evidence of your identity for your application. These emails are genuine and will be sent from the gov.uk application service email address. Please look out for these emails to ensure that your application can be processed.
Genuine emails will also come from elections@southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk or from a southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk email address.
If you no longer wish to vote by post, please contact us as soon as possible by emailing elections@southnorfolkandbroadland.gov.uk – please provide your full name and address in your correspondence.